Hurricane Sandy floods three New Jersey towns; 50 houses burn to ground in New York borough, millions without power

Millions of people in the eastern United States awoke on Tuesday to flooded homes, fallen trees and widespread power outages caused by the giant storm Sandy, which swamped New York City's subway system and submerged streets in Manhattan's financial district.

For the first time in more than a century, weather has stopped U.S. equity trading for two straight days as Hurricane Sandy swept across New York City. NYSE Euronext will this morning test a back-up plan in case its headquarters or trading floor are unable to open Wednesday.

Millions of people in the eastern United States awoke on Tuesday to flooded homes, fallen trees and widespread power outages caused by the giant storm Sandy, which swamped New York City’s subway system and submerged streets in Manhattan’s financial district.

At least 15 people were reported killed in the United States by Sandy, one of the biggest storms to ever hit the country, which dropped just below hurricane status before making landfall on Monday night in New Jersey.

A possible levee breach in northern New Jersey on Tuesday, flooded three towns with more than a metre of water in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, prompting the evacuation of hundreds from their homes.

Meanwhile, a massive six-alarm fire erupted in one of New York City’s most remote neighbourhood, razing about 50 homes, officials said.

More than 1 million people in a dozen states were under orders to evacuate as the massive system plowed westward.

The storm interrupted the presidential campaign a week before Election Day and closed U.S. financial markets for two days.

Sandy, which was especially imposing because of its wide-ranging winds, brought a record storm surge of almost 14 feet to downtown Manhattan, well above the previous record of 10 feet during Hurricane Donna in 1960, the National Weather Service said.

Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

Water poured into the subway system and tunnels that course under the city, raising concerns that the world’s financial capital could be hobbled for days.

“Hitting at high tide, the strongest surge and the strongest winds all hit at the worst possible time,” said Jeffrey Tongue, a meteorologist for the weather service in Brookhaven, New York.

Hurricane-force winds as high as 90 miles per hour were recorded, he said.

“Hopefully it’s a once-in-a-lifetime storm,” Tongue said.

Large sections of New York City were without power, and transportation in the metropolitan area was at a standstill.

“In 108 years our employees have never faced a challenge like the one that confronts us now,” Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Joseph Lhota said in a statement.

It could take anywhere from 14 hours to four days to get the water out of the flooded subway tunnels, the MTA said.

“The damage has been geographically very widespread” throughout the subway, bus and commuter train system, MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan said.

JERSEY TOWNS UNDER WATER

The towns of Moonachie, Little Ferry and Carlstadt were underwater after the swollen Hackensack River broke its banks, affecting around 2,000 residents, said Jeanne Baratta, chief of the Bergen County Executive.

Baratta, who was on the scene with emergency personnel, said there was the possibility that the river overflowed its banks rather than broke a levee while a New Jersey State Police spokesman described it as a levee break in the borough of Moonachie.

REUTERS/NY/NJ Port Authority/Twitter

There were no immediate reports of any fatalities and rescue workers took approximately 200 residents out of the danger zone while some others left on their accord.

“They are wet and they are cold and they have lost their homes and their property. It is very sad,” Baratta said.

“We are in rescue mode,” she said, adding that the three towns had been “devastated” by the flood waters.

Baratta described a scene of rescue teams using boats and trucks to move residents to safety at a nearby school in Teterboro, which also is home to a regional airport heavily used by corporate jets and smaller aircraft.

The break came hours after Sandy, which dropped below hurricane status just before it hit the U.S. East Coast on Monday.

DEVASTATING FIRE IN QUEENS

The neighborhood, Breezy Point in the borough of Queens, had been extensively flooded by Sandy’s record storm surge, and firefighters were hampered in their efforts to bring the blaze under control, a spokesman for the New York Fire Department said.

No casualties were immediately reported and the cause of the fire was under investigation.

A tweet from the FDNY’s official Twitter feed said 50 or more homes were destroyed in the fire. The fire still was not under control by 5 a.m., the department said.

Local television showed firefighters wading through waist-deep water to get to the massive fire. Some used inflatable boats to reach it.

Breezy Point is a private beach community in the Rockaway area, a narrow spit of land barely above sea level that thrusts into the Atlantic Ocean southwest of John F. Kennedy International Airport.

It was one of a number of New York City neighborhoods that had been under a mandatory evacuation order as Sandy, one of the biggest storms ever to hit the United States, approached from the southeast.

According to a report from WABC-TV in New York, dozens of residents chose not to obey the evacuation order and as many as 40 had to be rescued by firefighters from homes in the neighborhood as the fire approached, driven by 112 kmh winds. The NYFD spokesman could not verify the television station’s report of rescues.

BLIZZARD IN WEST VIRGINIA

A blizzard warning covers a large part of West Virginia as snow and high winds blow over Appalachia on the edges of superstorm Sandy.

The National Weather Service said Tuesday a foot and more of snow was reported in lower elevations of West Virginia, where most towns and roads are. High elevations in the mountains were getting more than two feet.

More than 128,000 customers in West Virginia were without power.

AP Photo/Robert Ray

Authorities closed more than 45 miles of Interstate 68 on either side of the West Virginia-Maryland state line because of blizzard conditions and stuck cars.

The State Highway Administration in Maryland says the higher elevations in the western state have gotten more than a foot of snow since Monday afternoon, and it was still snowing at 5 a.m. Tuesday.

‘UNPRECEDENTED’ DAMAGE TO NYC SUBWAYS

Sandy wreaked havoc on the New York City subway system, flooding tunnels, garages and rail yards and threatening to paralyze the nation’s largest mass-transit system for days.

“The New York City subway system is 108 years old, but it has never faced a disaster as devastating as what we experienced last night,” Joseph Lhota, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transit Authority, said in a statement early on Tuesday.

All seven subway tunnels running under the East River from Manhattan to Queens and Brooklyn took in water, and any resulting saltwater damage to the system’s electrical components will have to be cleaned – in some cases off-site – before the system can be restored, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Transit Authority said on Tuesday.

AP Photo

At dawn on Tuesday, emergency crews were assessing the damage to tunnels and elevated tracks. Restoring the system is likely to be a gradual process, MTA spokeswoman Deirdre Parker said.

“It’s really hard to say which areas will come back first,” said Parker, adding it will likely be a combination of limited subway and bus service. “It will come back gradually.”

About 5.3 million people on average use the city’s subway system on weekdays.

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